Last night, I ended my very scrambled blog post with a comment about the way my son, Stewie, was breathing. I said he sounded “like Darth Vader.”

It was midnight when I approved the post and I had heard some pretty heavy breathing and wheezing – with the odd sneeze thrown in just in case we didn’t know he had a cold. Experience told me that all he likely needed was a big sneeze or to cough up some phlegm and he would feel so much better and be able to sleep off his cold.

I went and got him from his crib and brought him into our bed and I think within moments my wife and I came to the realization that we might actually need to take Stewie to the hospital because his cough was very croupy, and he was really warm.

Not being the kid of parents to bring our kids into emergency for a matter which could be handled the next day at the doctor, we used the best tools we had at the time… My wife played Dr. Google and looked up the symptoms and consequences of the croup while Stewie pointed to his very congested nose and say, “broken”.

He would spend most of the night squirming around like he was in pain – but not crying, and we listened to what seemed like each and every gasp for breath, when the plan was put into action.

“Croup”, my wife declared. “Here are the symptoms and here is what we do to get him better. If he doesn’t improved even slightly tonight, we’ll have to take him to the emergency room.” We made some adjustments to his sleeping position, helped him clear up his nose a bit and between the 3 of us, we managed a good 2-hours sleep each.

Painfully, morning came and Stewie was stilll having trouble breathing so we called the doctor for an appointment and I dragged my ass into the office.

Of course, it was a very busy day today, my manager didn’t come in, so I was left to sort out some team issues, deal with a high number of walk-in clients and train the summer students with their queries when my phone rang. The number was our Doctor’s office number, and the voice on the other end of the phone was my wife who asked me if I could meet them in the emergency room as she was taking Stewie there ASAP.

I closed up my desk, gave the summer students some work to keep them more than occupied throughout the rest of the day, and I alerted another manager that I was needed before I hopped on the subway to the hospital.

I arrived just after they did, and we were led in almost immediately and within 3 hours, Stewie had received steroids and a mask to help him breathe. I love our medical system for being able to help us so fast. Stewie appreciated it too because he fell asleep soon after having the mask on his face but he was far from happy.

We were sent home soon thereafter, and we got Stewie into bed as soon as we came home, just before 8pm.

Whew.

So my wife and I look at each other, we’ve got to check on our older son, when my wife starts coughing…

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